"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Thursday, May 25, 2023

R.E. Slater - To the Unknown God




To the Unknown God
of Radical Love

by R.E. Slater

"What therefore you worship as unknown
this I now proclaim to you." Acts 17.23


Yes, I said to my Christian friend,
I will fellowship with you, and
with the Church, and in the church
    even when away or absent it's pews
    in heart and body but not in soul
    where God lives in me and I in Love.

But I also thought to myself,
No, I can no longer find sympathy
nor fellowship with my faith,
    for I seek another God...
    a God not of the church...
    a God unlike the church....

A God where the church may
find itself at times, but not where
God might find himself oftentimes
    when worshipped as unloving
    judgmental, wrathful; an absent
    Divine unattached to humanity.

This God I seek is a God of Love,
who offers service to the other,
who is against self-serving empires,
    and against empire-like religions
    holding human worth as a crime
    when unlike its own rules.

There is a kind of fellowship I seek
where I might find God's people,
but another kind of fellowship
    another kind of space whereby
    I might find all of God's people
    linked in love and loving fellowship.

The God I seek is the unknown God,
Unknown to us in so many ways,
but not in the ways of presence,
    ministry, advocacy, caregiving,
    promise, nor love; this God is the
    God I yearn to know, to be one.


R.E. Slater
May 21, 2023
Ref: RCPT2

* * * * * *



To the Unknown God
of Radically Lived Theology

by R.E. Slater

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and whoever loves
is born of God, and knoweth God. Dear friends, let us continue to love
one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of
of God and knows God. - 1 John 4.7-8


I am no longer embraced by
what I once was embracing,
The dismay too great,
the hurt too much.

God's church lost in empire,
lost in translation, in mission
and ministry, abandoning
what once I needed, I craved.

Not in what it was, but
by what it once promised,
Once my finis coronat opus, like
Christ's, declaring God's finished work.

Ever unfinished it's continuing work
but completed God's work of Love,
His lovingcare and mercy, mended
forgiveness in Loving relationship.

Till at last there is no longer
work to be done, but joy and
peace ever present sealing
heaven's loving presence.

Sealed it's founding promises
released to its gapping potentials,
Become what it was becoming,
Embracing the God indwelling.


R.E. Slater
May 22, 2023
Ref: RCPT4

*finis coronat opus - the goal gives
value to the labor; the end crowns
the work that produced it.